Mistrial declared in Mahwah pastor’s sex-assault case

A judge declared a mistrial Tuesday in the sexual-assault trial of a Mahwah minister, a few days after a juror researched the case online and distributed printouts to the other jurors.

Judge Edward Jerejian ruled that the actions of Juror No. 4 tainted the deliberations — which had gone on for five full days — to determine whether the Rev. Curtis Franklin had sex with an underage member of his church in the 1990s.

Court rules require jurors to rely entirely on evidence presented at trial. The trial judge instructs them at the end of each trial day not to read media accounts of the trial, discuss the case with anyone or do their own research online.

Jurors sent a note to the judge on Thursday, saying that one of the jurors brought in material from Wikipedia regarding legal terminology.

When questioned later by a judge, many of the jurors said they looked through the documents but did not read them.

Kenneth Ralph, an assistant Bergen County prosecutor, said that Juror No. 4 should be removed from the panel, but that the deliberations should proceed with an alternate juror.

He said most of the jurors did not read the documents extensively.

“We don’t have a situation in which [Juror No. 4’s] conduct was so pervasive as to taint the other jurors,” he said.

Defense lawyer Miles Feinstein argued that the jurors had the document for more than a day before they informed the judge about it.

Feinstein quoted one of the jurors as saying during questioning by a judge that she spoke to her husband about the documents, and that her husband advised her to report it to the judge. Jurors are also prohibited from discussing the case with family members.

“I think it would be unconscionable to proceed with this trial,” Feinstein said.

Jerejian said many of the jurors may not have read the documents, but Juror No. 4, who had been researching the case online, had been deliberating for several days with the other jurors, thereby introducing “extraneous” influence on the other jurors.

“The court’s concern is that there is taint in the jury room,” he said.

Ralph argued during the seven-week trial that Franklin, an assistant pastor at the Mahwah Full Gospel Church, had sex with an underage member of the church from 1995 to 1998, beginning when the alleged victim was 12 years old.

Franklin, 44, was charged shortly after the alleged victim came forward more than a decade later in 2009.

Feinstein argued that Franklin introduced changes to the church’s management and began clashing with the alleged victim’s mother, who was active in the church.

It was during those clashes that the alleged victim, who is now 28, made the allegations, he said.